Scare Your Way Through Spring Break Reads
Dread Detention By Jennifer Killick
The Breakfast Club meets Stranger Things in this middle grade horror novel for fans of Goosebumps! Detention turns even scarier when a group of classmates discover dangers lurking in their school.
When classmates Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira are forced to come to school on a Saturday, they think things can’t get much worse. But they’re wrong. Things are about to get seriously scary.
What has dragged their teacher underground? Why do the creepy caretakers keep humming the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider? And what horrors lurk in the shadows, getting stronger and meaner every minute . . .? Cut off from help and in danger each time they touch the ground, the gang’s only hope is to work together. But it’s no coincidence that they're all there on detention. Someone has been watching and plotting and is out for revenge . . .
Bumps in the Night By Amalie Howard
The creepy middle grade debut from USA Today bestselling author Amalie Howard in which a girl stays with her grandmother in Trinidad for the summer and discovers that she comes from a long line of powerful witches.
Darika “Rika” Lovelace is in trouble. The kind of trouble that sends her to her grandmother’s estate in Trinidad for the whole summer. But something about the island feels…different. As soon as she steps off the plane, strange things start happening!
Rika meets a group of kids called Minders, who seem to have elemental powers. Even worse, she can sense jumbies lurking in the shadows. Needless to say, she wants a ticket home. But when the Minders let slip that her long-lost mom is in danger, she knows she can’t leave.
Thrust into a magical adventure involving bloodcurdling monsters, a supernatural silk cotton tree, and an endless maze, Rika must defeat the fearsome jumbie king to save her family and new friends. But unless she learns to believe in herself, she’ll never beat him or escape his twisted maze.
Wretched Waterpark By Kiersten White
A middle-grade mystery series that's spooky, creepy, and filled with gothic twists! Meet the Sinister-Winterbottom twins, who solve mysteries at increasingly bizarre summer vacation destinations in the hopes of being reunited with their parents—or at the very least finally finding a good churro.
“An absolute delight. If I have to die in a waterpark, I want to die in this one.”—Holly Black, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Cruel Prince
"Wickedly weird. . . . Will appeal to anyone who loved A Series of Unfortunate Events." —The New York Times
Meet the Sinister-Winterbottoms: brave Theo, her timid twin, Alexander, and their older sister, Wil. They’re stuck for the summer with their Aunt Saffronia, who doesn’t know how often children need to eat and can’t use a smartphone, and whose feet never quite seem to touch the floor when she glides—er—walks.
When Aunt Saffronia suggests a week pass to the Fathoms of Fun Waterpark, they hastily agree. But the park is even stranger than Aunt Saffronia. The waterslides look like gray gargoyle tongues. The employees wear creepy black dresses and deliver ominous messages. An impossible figure is at the top of the slide tower, people are disappearing, and suspicious goo is seeping into the wave pool.
Something mysterious is happening at Fathoms of Fun, and it’s up to the twins to get to the bottom of it. The mystery, that is. NOT the wave pool. Definitely NOT the wave pool. But are Theo and Alexander out of their depth?
It Happened to Anna By Tehlor Kay Mejia
This spine-tingling ghost story follows a tween girl who’s being literally haunted by loneliness until a new friendship upends her life. From the bestselling author of the Paola Santiago series!
"Absolutely haunting!"—Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of Mine
Sadie Rivera has been haunted all her life by a vengeful ghost—a ghost that doesn’t want her to make any friends. The moment she tries? Cue exploding lightbulbs, chilling gusts of wind, and slamming doors.
Last year, Sadie got fed up. Last year, she made a best friend, Anna. So when the ghost caused an accident that killed her best friend, Sadie knew it was all her fault.
Which is why she’s not going to make any friends this year at her new school. At least until mysterious cool girl Mal shows up, and the ghost doesn’t bother her for once. But Mal wants Sadie all to herself—and she’ll do anything to make sure it stays that way.
